In the first two weeks of October, Donald Trump and his allies directed about a third of all their spending on broadcast TV advertisements to ads about transgender health care, a significant increase reflecting a major tactical shift from previous months’ ad expenditures.
On the other side, Kamala Harris and her allies continued to put money into ads focused on taxes, character and health care, while lowering their investment in spots about abortion rights. Democrats have also abandoned an earlier emphasis on immigration and crime when Harris and her allies sought to blunt sustained GOP attacks in the weeks after she took over the ticket.
The ad tracking firm AdImpact catalogs the issues that are referenced in broadcast TV campaign ads and tracks the amount of money behind those spots. Comparing changes since August illustrates how the two campaigns and their allies are tailoring their messages and how much they’re spending to do so.
Pro-Trump campaign ads
Since the beginning of October, Republican advertisers in the presidential race have flooded the airwaves in battleground states with a series of stark attack ads, blasting Harris for previously expressing support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners, a position she took during her unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.
These ads about transgender health care – whichAdImpact tracks under the “LGBTQ rights” category – accounted for about 33% of all Republican broadcast TV advertising during the first two weeks of October, more than $21 million out of a total of about $66 million.
The emphasis on transgender policies is a pronounced shift from Republican advertising earlier in the fall. In August, LGBTQ rights were unmentioned in GOP broadcast TV ads; in September, they accounted for just 7.5%, or about $7 million in total broadcast spending.
The economy has also occupied a significant share of Republican presidential advertising, though with shifting points of emphasis.
Ads referencing taxation, which warn of potential Democratic-led tax hikes, rose as a share of GOP broadcast TV spending to 40%, becoming the top-ranked issue in the first two weeks of October – up from 2% of ad spending in August, and less than 1% in September. At the same time, inflation fell as a share of GOP TV ad spending – going from 40% in September to 18% in the first two weeks of October.
Immigration and crime – often lumped together in Republican ads – have been among the top issues in GOP spots throughout the campaign, though the emphasis has declined over time.
In August, immigration was the top-ranked issue in advertising by Trump and his allies, referenced in ads that accounted for about 69% of the total Republican broadcast TV spending during that month. Crime ranked second, drawing about 55% of Republican broadcast ad dollars.
In September, both issues still ranked among the top five, with crime the leading issue, though ad spending on immigration was down to 35%, and crime to 44%.
In the first two weeks of October, immigration and crime continue to rank in the top five, but their share of total ad spending has fallen further – 17% for immigration and 27% for crime.
Pro-Harris campaign ads
Harris and her allies have also made some strategic adjustments to the content of their broadcast TV advertising.
In the first two weeks of October, tax policy ranked as the top issue, as spots about taxation drew about half of all broadcast TV ad spending, nearly $47 million, out of a total of about $95 million. Taxation has been a consistent point of emphasis in Democratic presidential advertising, part of a two-pronged approach – touting Harris’ tax policies aimed at working and middle-class families, while also attacking Trump’s approach and criticizing tax cuts for corporations and top earners.
In August, taxation ranked as the fifth issue for Democrats in their broadcast TV advertising, accounting for about a quarter of presidential spending. In September, that went up to 51% and held steady at 49% in the first two weeks of October.
Meanwhile, abortion – which Democratic ads for congressional races have emphasized heavily – continued to account for a significant share of Harris and her allies’ broadcast TV advertising, though it fell noticeably in the first two weeks of October.
In August, ads referencing abortion rights accounted for about a third of all Democratic broadcast TV advertising in the presidential race, ranking as the top issue. In September, that share was about the same, 32%, including spending on a Harris campaign ad about IVF treatments, which does not explicitly mention abortion. In the first two weeks of October, ads about abortion rights, including the IVF spot, accounted for about 12% of Democratic broadcast TV advertising.
In dollar amounts, that represented a decline from more than $78 million combined across both August and September combined to about $11 million in the two-week October period.
Other top issues in Democratic presidential advertising on broadcast TV have been character – with Democrats consistently airing waves of ads questioning Trump’s fitness for office – and health care, with multiple spots touting the Biden administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs, protect Obamacare and expand Medicare coverage.
Harris and her allies also appear to have mostly abandoned an earlier effort in the weeks immediately after the vice president took over the top of the Democratic ticket, to blunt GOP attacks on immigration and crime. In August, ads about crime – many touting Harris’ background in law enforcement, as a former district attorney and state attorney general – accounted for about 29% of Democratic broadcast TV advertising, while spots about immigration drew 11%. In September, both issues fell below 3%, and that continued in the first two weeks of October, with neither issue drawing more than 2% of total spending.
“Positive” vs. “negative” messaging
Ads from the campaigns and their allies cover a wide range of competing issues, and they also reflect divergent strategies when it comes to their overall tone.
AdImpact categorizes the tone of campaign ads airing on broadcast TV as either “positive,” “negative,” or “contrast,” which attempt to highlight policy differences between the candidates.
And the data shows that the Trump campaign and its allies are waging an overwhelmingly negative advertising effort.
Out of a total of $66 million that Republican advertisers spent on broadcast TV for the presidential race during the first two weeks of October, nearly 80% went toward “negative” ads, just over 20% was spent on “contrast” ads and nothing went toward “positive” ads.
By comparison, data for the Harris campaign and its allies reflects a more balanced approach. Out of a total of about $95 million that Democratic advertisers spent on broadcast TV for the first two weeks of the month, about 58% went toward “contrast” ads, about 23% to “negative” ads and about 19% to “positive” ads.
